Week-long ‘Festival of Innovations’ kicks off at Rashtrapati Bhavan

New Delhi, March 12 (IANS) In a bid to boost the grassroot-level innovations across the country, President Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday inaugurated the second edition of the week-long “Festival Innovation” at Rashtrapati Bhavan here.

The festival, to be celebrated from March 12 to 19, has been organised by the President’s Office in collaboration with the National Innovation Foundation (NIF).

The festival was kicked off with the inauguration of an “Exhibition of Innovations” at the world-famous Mughal Gardens that will remain open to the public till March 19.

“Innovation is an idea whose time has come. The budget for this festival has gone up 600 percent as compared to last year,” Ashutosh Sharma, secretary, Department of Science & Technology, told mediapersons.

“Our idea is to reach out to the students from class 6 to 12 for innovative ideas across the country. From there, one lakh ideas will be selected and each of them will be given Rs.5,000 to convert the idea into an innovation,” he added.

Later on, 10,000 innovations will be selected and showcased at state-level. Out of the 10,000 innovations, 1,000 will be showcased at the national level. “The final 60 innovations will be showcased at the Rashtrapati Bhavan,” Sharma noted.

The president also released a book titled “Festival of Innovation- 2015” authored by Dr Harsh Vardhan, Minister of Science and Technology, at the event.